Professor Gianfranco Agosti

Gianfranco Agosti is Professor of Classical and Late Antique Philology at Sapienza University of Rome, Italy. For the duration of his Visiting Fellowship he is hosted by St. Andrews University.

Type

Fellowship

Programme

Visiting Fellowships

Status

Ongoing

Professor Agosti's research interests lie in Late Antiquity and Byzantine studies. During his time in the UK, he will work on a monograph devoted to a comprehensive study of the social and cultural role of inscriptional Greek poetry in Late Antiquity, from the end of the third to the beginning of the seventh century CE.

The central issues of this work are a re-evaluation of the relation between inscriptional poems and elite literature; an exploration of the social role of poems on stone as vehicles for the display and diffusion of both classical and Christian learning; and a re-consideration of verse inscriptions’ place in the urban space of late antique eastern Mediterranean cities.

Project part of

This programme provides academics based in any country overseas (and active at any career stage) with the opportunity to be based at a UK higher education or other research institution of their choice for up to six months.